Step by Step
by Melicress
Summary: With each step taken, more things were broken. It would never end up being enough.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam seed. Sorry to disappoint :)**

This is a good piece for me. I actually put a lot of effort into it. It's kind of what "No Longer Required" was supposed to be like. I've pretty much changed it completely. I'm only planning on this being like, 6-7 chapters. For reference, all of my OC's are non-obtrusive characters; they serve as enhancements to the mains (they are not obnoxious). They only have a brief mention here because I thought it would be appropriate to slip them into the story at the end point of this chapter. They aren't people, really. They're actually more symbols.

Anyway, I would be working on Face to Face, but I swear that story just hasn't been speaking to me like it used to. I'm going to finish it; it is kind of the evolution of my writing skills from start to current end point, and quite honestly, I've gotten attached :) I want to finish it, but I want to do it right. The ending I have, it just doesn't cut it. I'm going to stop worrying about updating it and just kind of let the story flow. I could write the next chapter right this second, but I guarantee you it wouldn't be nearly as good. I know it's been over a year, but once I get it, I'll get it, and I'm sure that you people will like the ending.

That's assuming that the people who read that story have also read this one. And read author's notes. xD

On a side note, No Longer Required will probably be deleted, as this is essentially the better version. Yeah.

So, anyway, enough of my ramblings. I hope you like this piece :)

Step by Step

Athrun remembers that day as clearly as if it were happening right before him. The regulated climate of the Plants tasting warm and slightly metallic on his tongue, the shuffle of his messenger bag bang against his shins as he walked home from school, tiny little haro charms that Lacus had given him the day before jingling together. He was jumping over each crack of the sidewalk, trying not to groan at all the homework that had been assigned to him. Hopping through the crowd of people trying to make their way home from a busy days work, he had found himself murmuring an old childhood rhyme. So he bounced over each crack, feeling nostalgic as he remember the games he and Kira used to play on the moon.

"_Step on a crack, break your mother's back."_

He hopped over another two cracks, his messenger bag charms jingling merrily. A man in a business cap scowled as he nearly crashed into him. He murmured an apology, but that did not stop his mission. He was determined.

"_Step on a line, break your mother's spine."_

Skillfully evading three more of the cracks, Athrun allowed a wide smile to come across his face. It was fun, oddly, to remember such a game. He hadn't made any truly good friends since the moon; his father kept him too busy. Remembering Kira like this; it made it okay.

"_That's silly, Kira! You don't really believe that stepping on a crack will hurt your mom, do you?"_

Three more. Four more. He was getting closer to home now.

"_No Athrun! It's just a game! C'mon, play with me!"_

He entered the square. A news reporter was talking on one of the screens. The people around him slowly came to a standstill, all of them looking up at the screen. Athrun frowned, it was almost surreal. That their faces drew down and anxiety suddenly twinkled at the sides of their eyes. A woman across from him looked like she was almost ready to cry.

Athrun spun, the jingle of his charms following his motion in a happy serenade.

He turned just in time to see it.

There on the screen, in a horrifying rain of fire, Athrun watched as what looked like one of the Plants, one of _their homes, _blew to pieces in the shaking vacuum of space.

A bird chirped from a nearby tree, springing up to fly through the square in a few spirals, perching atop the news screen.

Then silence reigned throughout the square.

The report went on. Horrifying death toll. Imminent retaliation from the Zaft forces to protect their homes. Public advisories for safety. A lock down on all unauthorized travel between the Plants and Earth.

Because Junius 7 had gone up in flames.

And no one had survived.

Athrun felt tears well up in his eyes as his messenger bag slipped off his shoulder, the charms giving a last little quiet tinkle before falling silent against the pavement. He looked to see the red fabric pooled at his feet, the metal of the keychain winking at him in the artificial sunlight.

And beneath his feet, two cracks.

_Step on a crack, break your mother's back._

He was distantly aware of sudden panic and shouting around him. Of feet running by, the sound of whistles and demands to retreat to the safety inside your homes. The sounds of breaking glass, and the beginnings of a riot.

They didn't know the toll, but it was suspected that over 200 000 perished.

But to the boy with the cherry red messenger bag, the loss of a single life was enough.

When the whistles had died down, and the people had been subdued, Athrun Zala stood alone in a square, dry salt tracks down his face from tears he didn't even know that he'd spilled.

A strong, comforting hand enclosed his shoulder, and his eyes were drawn upward as the lights of the Plant went out for the night. A police man, eyes drawn grey with strain and sorrow gazed into his own. The hand tightened for a moment.

"Athrun Zala?"

And he could only nod.

The police man offered him a strained smile.

_Empty._

"Let's get you home."

Athrun scooped up his messenger bag with heavy arms, barely remembering picking up stray bits of paper that had slipped out and slinging the slight weight back over his shoulders. Barely remembering the police officer quietly leading him to a smaller vehicle, and driving him to the front of his house.

But he did remember cooler grey eyes, aloof and cold, staring at him blankly as he stood on the doorstep, shoulders slumped in disbelief and defeat of something that he could never hope to understand.

"Thank you, for finding my son."

And the police man only nodded before leaving the doorstep, and a young boy standing in aging yellow light above the shadow of man called his father.

The creaking of a wood paneled door, then silence reigned again. His father stared at him, the wrinkles of his lilac uniform accented by the light. Grey hair was in a slight tussle; like too many a hand had been wrung through it in frustration, and faint lines beside his eyes betrayed his weakness. Athrun could only stare right back, as words unbidden filled his throat; words that he knew no one had the answer to.

_Why?_

"Why are you late?" His father's voice was soft as he leaned against the doorframe, hand ghosting over the wood as if it were a fragile stranger. Grey eyes narrowed, spiritless in the light, as if the sense for a touch of normalcy lingered on the very air that he breathed.

Athrun swung his bag around, clutching the straps in both hands. Red cloth on pale skin.

"I don't know."

His father's face twitched. A downward draw of the mouth, accenting developing wrinkles that were already deepening. A squint of the eyes, a slight pull at the corners. An expression that is poorly described by the word _grief._

Because as both son and father knew, such emotions could not be described in words.

So they didn't try.

"Come inside." A back turned to him, the precise clicking of polished boots. Normalcy.

"Okay." Athrun walked inside, carefully closing the door behind him.

All the lights went out that night.

* * *

><p>The phone rang.<p>

His father answered it, morning light trickling down his shadows.

"He's not here at the moment, you'll have to call back later."

_Click._

* * *

><p>Athrun didn't know how much time had passed. He paced his room back and forth uncountable times. The messenger bag sat untouched on his desk, red spilled over wood and metal binding. The key chain winked at him<p>

_Lacus._

But he wasn't to use the phone. He wasn't to answer the phone. Even though the phone rang at regular rate throughout the house, as if to make up for a heartbeat that was no longer there.

He didn't know what to do. His father was away. Arranging for the funerals of what was now an estimated 224 346 people. That, or he was at the bottom of the whiskey bottle that perched in his office, frowning down at Athrun whenever he passed.

He was tempted to take it away.

But he knew _better _than that.

The sun had risen and set across his covers. He hadn't eaten. He hadn't spoken. There was still salt on his cheeks.

Because he hadn't done anything, and couldn't do anything.

Why do anything now?

_To war._

That's what the newscaster had said.

_To war._

They were the enemy. They had attacked and killed the official total of 243,721 people.

That was the number he would never forget.

Because one of those, one of those was...

_In Loving Memory._

_Lenore Zala._

Only a tombstone, with no body.

He was standing over an empty grave.

And, looking around, there were hundreds, no, thousands of other graves. All in the same off-white granite, different types of withering flowers all crowding, filling the little space there was to walk between in the first place.

The bodiless graveyard of Junius Seven.

And when he looked beyond, there were plain gravestones.

There was room for more.

He laid down the single blood red rose he had snuck out of the house with. It was already withering, the edges crinkled and brown in the over bright sunlight.

His father didn't want to come to the graveyard. Lenore wasn't there.

His mother wasn't there.

* * *

><p>His father was drunk again.<p>

Athrun crept through the hall, his eyes warily fixated on the study door. He had to do something; it was getting out of hand. They hadn't said a word to each other in over a week, only watching each other with wide eyes and awkward twitches of the mouth.

He had to fix it, or else the only family he had left was going to fall to pieces.

Hesitantly, he knocked.

"Come in." The voice was heavy and warbled. Athrun took a deep breath.

Athrun stepped inside, his feet making soft indents in the green plush carpet.

He had never set foot inside the office before.

There was the whiskey bottle, haunting him from the top of the oak desk. Green shades on the lamps flickered in the beams of sunlight coming from the checkered windows that faced the east. Wooden shelves showed rows and rows of books, and a comfortable revolving chair was slightly reclined back, angled away from the desk. There was a white cord snacking down the side of the arm of the chair, where Athrun could see that the phone had been left to hang off the hook.

And then there was his father. Facing east with sunlight on his chin. His eyes were darkened, his cheeks flushed from alcohol. The ever present purple council uniform hung off his body in crinkled clumps. His shoulders were shaking, his hand gripping the sides of the window frame like his life depended on it.

Athrun's voice crackled.

"Father?"

"Athrun." His father turned, boots scraping unsteadily into the carpet. "Did I ever tell you how much you look like your mother?" Athrun almost recoiled as the man bent down to his level, resting both hands on either side of his shoulders. He could smell the whiskey on his breath, and the grey eyes that stared intently into his were hazy and unfocused.

_I should have come sooner._

"No," he said, "You haven't."

His father scowled leaning in closer.

"Don't cut your hair, Athrun. _You'll look too much like her._"

Athrun flinched as his father gripped his shoulders for a moment. He suppressed his sigh of relief as his father stood, turned back to face the window.

"I would go out there and fight myself."

Athrun stayed quiet. It was best to be silent.

His father chuckled.

"But I am a councilman. I can't leave my station to go fight." His voice warbled again. "They won't let me leave."

A sparkling feeling was gathering in Athrun's throat. His father was never like this. His father never used to drink. If he'd had a hard day, he would settle down in the living room by the fire next to his mother, and they would talk it out, or if she was gone he would talk to her on the phone, or write to her or...

_Mother._

She was gone.

"The only thing we can hope to gain now, Athrun, is revenge. It's the only way to make this right." His father's voice grew soft, almost to a grating whisper. "We must do this. We can't _forgive _them for such a...an...atrocity!"

The words rang through Athrun's ears, and shock was growing in his soul. _Can't...forgive? _But, he was taught, that the only way to truly resolve conflict...

_They killed your mother. How can you possibly forgive them?_

Athrun looked at the back of his father. He couldn't do anything to change this, could he?

_Why won't he grieve with me? Why won't he go to see mother?_

His mother wasn't buried there.

A few birds flew by the window, coming to rest in the bushes just beyond the glass.

He wished he could've done something to stop it.

_But you can't do anything._

_You are __**powerless.**_

How does one gain power, anyway?

"Father..."

"Wouldn't you agree?" His father turned. Deceptive calm. "Wouldn't you, Athrun?"

And for the first time, Athrun saw the glimmerings of something frightening in the depths of his father's eyes.

"Of course." He couldn't tell if that was a lie or not, but how could he not agree?

_**Powerless.**_

His father was glaring at the bushes; at the birds.

"There is a form on the kitchen table. I would like you to take a look at it."

He could only nod as he left the room, heart pounding in his ribcage.

* * *

><p>If you were to look through the official records, you would find them to be a bit obscure. War is easy to declare, in comparison to actually carrying out the action. You need soldiers. You need weapons.<p>

You need leaders.

And fast.

So little things like age start not to matter anymore.

By law, you had to be 18 to sign up for the forces. There were no exceptions. Absolutely none.

So Athrun Zala, Yzak Joule, Dearka Elsman, Nicol Amalfi, Rusty Mackenzie, Miguel Aiman, Jamieson Marcus, Coral Baker, Shiho Haussenfluss, along with everyone else, were all 18 when they signed up for the forces.

Every single one of them.

On paper.

So, the identification cards were made, the photos taken, the lies finalized.

Because this was how you earned your pride.

This was how you made up for it in your mind.

* * *

><p>Opinions would be beautiful :) Drop a review on your way out?<p> 


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